Information files

Multimedia

A&A can also publish multimedia and 3D models embedded within HTML and PDF versions of articles: these are displayed alongside the article’s text.

Movies

Size

When you submit your video files, please make sure their size is appropriate: as small as possible (and not larger than 10 Mb) but still big enough for all the important scientific information and details to be clearly visible. We will not resize videos, so authors are expected to submit their video files in the size and format in which they wish them to appear.

Format

We accept .mov, .avi, .mpg and .mp4 files. Please note that we cannot accept movie files that require the reader to download particular codecs; files must be playable on standard media players such as QuickTime, Windows Media Player or VLC.

Examples

Movies can be either fully embedded in the text, or linked to.

The "media9" package provides an interface to embed 3D objects (Adobe U3D & PRC), as well as video and sound files or streams in the popular MP4, FLV and MP3 formats, into PDF documents with Acrobat-9/X compatibility.
See for example the following article: http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2013/03/aa20646-12/aa20646-12.html
Figures 2 and 6 are fully embedded in the HTML and PDF versions with the LaTeX package "media9".

If you do not choose to embed your movies within your article PDF and HTML files, you can also refer to them in your text/figure caption(s) at appropriate places, and we will add a direct hyperlink to the webpage hosting your videos on our website. The video can either be referred to within a sentence, e.g.:
"Fig. 2. Same as Fig. 1 for the sequence running from 2 January 2005 13:36:19 UT to 8 January 2005, 15:00:10 UT. The temporal evolution is available as an online movie."
Or, it can be just mentioned within parentheses, e.g.:
"Fig. 2. Evolution of the jet in 171 Å […] Bottom right: elongated jet structure with over-plotted cross-cuts used for anlaysis of the kink motion (Online movie)."
Here is an example of a hyperlink between a PDF version of an article and the webpage hosting the corresponding videos:http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/olm/2014/01/aa21213-13/aa21213-13.html

If your video is not attached to a figure (e.g. graph, image, etc), then please remember to supply a snapshot of the video and a caption for us to use as an illustration in the PDF version of your article.

The names of your files should make it easy and quick for the typesetter to know which figure/video it is and to distinguish between video files and alternative PDF files. An example is given below:
aa22345-fig1.jpg
aa22345-fig1_movie.mpeg

3D models

Size

When you submit your 3D model files, please make sure their size is appropriate: as small as possible but still big enough for all the important scientific information and details to be clearly visible. We will not resize your files, so authors are expected to submit their video files in the size and format they wish them to appear.

The size of the whole PDF document should not exceed 50 Mb. The same requirements as for videos apply, and your files should have easily identifiable names.

At present time, the technical tools to automatically standardise the process of including a 3D object into an HTML format do not exist. To overcome this technical limitation, A&A will accept links to 3D models on your site or on any specialised site such as Sketchfab. In this case, links should be included in your article as footnotes at the appropriate places.

Including author names using non-Roman alphabets

A&A authors have the possibility of including names in their native alphabets in addition to their English names. These names will be in parentheses after the English names displayed in the PDF. It is the responsibility of the authors to check the accuracy and formatting of their names in the final proofs that they receive prior to publication.

“native-names” Files

After your paper has been accepted, you will be asked to send all your files to the publisher. If you want to include names in non-Roman alphabets, it is also necessary to send the publisher the full list of authors in a file named “native-names”. Then names should be in the same order as in the accepted version of your manuscript, but adding any needed non-Roman names

How to generate this file?

Please use an appropriate Unicode text editor to save the list of the names in UTF8:

You may also send the publisher a Microsoft Word or Open Office file with standard fonts: native-names.docx, native-names.odt.

LaTeX files

In addition to this file, authors may wish to enter their native names in the LaTeX file and the PDF file. Authors that are used to entering specific characters/fonts and to working with specific packages may send their LaTeX/PDF files with their native names:

These files will be the ones used by the production office, but make certain that you also send the native-names.txt, .docx, .doc, or .odt file (see above).

Some frequent corrections

These are several other words and phrases that we need to deal with regularly,
because they are either vague, informal (I), or simply not correct (x).
More examples of redundant or wordy formulations (R) are also listed
with a possible correction.

The phrase to question

Error?

The correction or
suggested changes

Those
related to the use of a pronoun
(multi-word verbs and expressions)

To
depend of/dependent of

x

To depend on/dependent on

Independent on

x

Independent of

Evidenced by

x

Shown by

Evidence for

Evidence of (the main
choice of preposition)

Comparable with

x

Comparable to

Useful to determine
A tool to determine

Useful for determining
A tool for determining

Typical for

x

Typical of

Impossibility to do X

Impossibility of doing, but It is
impossible to do

To allow/enable/permit to
do

x

Transitive verbs require a
direct object, so:
To allow/enable someone to do something

In the past 5 years
("past" is preferred for time phrases, "last" for all the others: "my
last wife" or "my former wife". Even then, it can be ambiguous: the
final or the former? If you mean the second here, use a clearer
phrasing: "my former wife").

Till

I

Until

Both X as well as Y

x

Both X and Y

Modelised

x

Modelled or modeled

Evolutionary history

History (redundant) or
evolution

To study the occurence of
the X phenomenon

R

Study X; or study the X
phenomenon; or Study the X phenomenon

To perform a fine tuning
(or: an analysis) of X

R

To fine-tune X

Occurence, etc.

x

Occurs, occurred,
occurrence

Sun, solar

Sun, solar (if ours), as
for Earth and Moon

To explicit

x

Not an english verb, but
suggests either "to make explicit" ot "to explain in detail"

galactic bulge, (our) galaxy

Galactic bulge, Galaxy

The mentioned authors (i.e., mentioned earlier in the
paper)

The authors (or if too far in the article, rename them)

Least squares technique

x

Least-square technique

Close-by

An adverb only ("He lives close-by"), so for an
adjective use either "close" or "nearby"

Like for example

R

Such as

Latter ( for a list of 3+)

x

This word is used to refer to the second of 2 previous
elements, not more. Use "last" or another pronoun alone ("this" or
"these")

Included also X; other phrases where "also" is
understood, such as "In addition, ... also..."

Included X; "In addition," or "also";

... but or
however ...

R

These express the same thing, so use one or the other

The high/low vs. large/small or strong/weak problem: the left-hand
column goves the attribute, the right-hand one the words that use them.
NB, some show up in two places.

Expressions used too often: either jargon or simply wordy, but useful
in its place.

Is in agreement with

Agrees with (This phrase is standard
and clear, but do use it sparingly for very technical comparisons or
where the normal phrase is awkward)

In this paper

Use only to contrast with
another's paper or else in the abstract in the first
sentence, if useful; otherwise, it is understood. Simply use the
personal "we" when you feel it
might not be clear you mean your own article.

Quite, rather, somewhat

These quantifiers are very
imprecise; for instance, does "quite
small" mean "very small" or
"somewhat small"? In most cases the
simple adjective is clearer and just as correct
("small"). Most scientists know that a
quantifier without close measurement is inexact, so the adverbial
quantification is not needed.

In order to

Rather than use only this
phrase, vary with others, including the simple infinitive. There are
places it is the only choice, so reserve it for these cases.

Relative to; with respect
to

Some authors use this
constantly and in different contexts, especially when meaning either
"compared to" or
"related to". This non-technical use
makes the phrase very ambiguous, if not incorrect. As these are fairly
technical expressions, we cannot always tell whether you mean the
normal "compared to" and may query its
use, just to have you check your context.

Further: e.g., "It adds a
further layer"

This is being overused
where "more",
"another" ("It adds another
layer"), "earlier", or even
"then" is what is meant and is standard
English. It means "more extended" not
just a greater number of.

Such or such as

Being overused where
"this" or "those" is what is meant.

Non negligible

"significant"
or "of low significance"

"Metal-poorer"
or "More metal-poor"?

Both are accepted, but why not the more standard ''is richer/poorer in metals'' in some cases?

Astronomical objects: linking to databases

SIMBAD, the astronomical database, and ALADIN, the interactive deep sky
mapping facility at the CDS Strasbourg, create anchors for astronomical objects
cited in A&A. Object names that are tagged with the \object
macro and verified will appear linked to the object information. As the one better placed to start the process and in order
to help in the indexing, you should surround any astronomical object in your
text, as well as in small tables with the command:

\object{objectname}

This command simply prints out its argument and adds the thus-marked element to the list of hyper-linked astronomical objects, so it should be repeated for each object.

In the referee version of your article or in the final (two-column) version, the list of your objects
will automatically appear at the end (after the references).
LaTeX will write an auxiliary file with
the extension obj to prepare that list. Please, verify this list carefully.

Astronomical designations (also called Object Identifiers) are often
confusing. We encourage you to test the stellar objects (in the *.tex
file or in the *.obj file), using the sites and easy tools available at
the CDS.

The Object Identifiers have been also collected and published by Lortet and
collaborators in Dictionaries of Nomenclature of Celestial Objects outside the
solar system (1994A&AS..107..193L). The information service available at
http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/Dic is the electronic look-up version of the
Dictionary, which is updated on a regular basis; it provides full references and
usages about for 13211 different acronyms.

A&A: Keywords

The list is common to the major Astronomical and Astrophysical Journals. In
order to ease the search, the keywords are subdivided into broad categories.
The parts of the keywords in italics are for reference only and should be omitted
when the key are entered on the manuscript.

How to prepare your TEX file: examples

Example of a manuscript header with structured abstract

\documentclass{aa}
\usepackage[varg]{txfonts}

\begin{document}

\title{Optimality relationships for $p$-cyclic SOR
p
\thanks{Research supported in part by the US Air Force
under grant no. AFOSR-88-0285 and
the National Science Foundation under grant
no. DMS-85-21154}\fnmsep
\thanks{This is a second footnote}\\
resulting in asymptotically faster convergence\\
for the same amount of work per iteration}

\subtitle{II. An example text with infinitesimal
scientific value\\
whose title and subtitle may also be split}

Example of a manuscript header with traditional abstract

\documentclass{aa}
\usepackage[varg]{txfonts}

\begin{document}

title{Optimality relationships for $p$-cyclic SOR p
\thanks{Research supported in part by the US Air Force
under grant no. AFOSR-88-0285 and
the National Science Foundation under grant
no. DMS-85-21154}\fnmsep
\thanks{This is a second footnote}\\
resulting in asymptotically faster convergence\\
for the same amount of work per iteration}

\subtitle{II. An example text with infinitesimal
scientific value\\
whose title and subtitle may also be split}

\abstract{We look for characteristics typical of water-megamaser galaxies
in SO 103-G035, TXS 2226-184, and IC 1481. We obtained long-slit optical
emission-line spectra. We present rotation curves, line ratios, electron
densities, temperatures. IC 1481 reveals a spectrum suggestive of a vigorous
starburst in the central kiloparsec 108 years ago. We do not find any hints
for outflows nor special features which could give clues to the unknown
megamaser excitation mechanism.}

To produce two columns width tables, use the table* environment.
If a horizontal line is required in the table, the \cline{n-m} command
is used to draw a horizontal line from the left side of the column n to the
right side of the column m.
The \multicolumn{num}{col}{text} command is used to combine the
following num columns into a single column with their total width:

Notes can refer to special portions of the table and be introduced with superscripts. In this case, the author should use
the command \tablefootmark and \tablefoottext. Notes can also include general remarks on the whole table.
In this case, the note is not preceded with a superscript and is introduced with the command \tablefoot. A detailed example is given below, followed by the related TEX code.

Some other examples of large, online tables are also given in the aa.dem
file.

Figures

Figures submitted to the Journal must be of the highest quality to ensure accuracy and clarity in the final published copy. You can supply graphics in eps, pdf, jpg, png, and tiff formats, or as native Photoshop/Illustrator files. We recommend that you refrain from using conversion tools that might decrease the quality of the figures.

We urge the author to limit the empty space in and around figures. Artwork should be in sharp focus, with clean, clear numbers and letters and with sharp black lines. Thin lines should be avoided, particularly in figures requiring considerable reduction. Authors should check whether laser-printed originals of these figures are acceptable (especially for grayscale).

The author is warned that changes in the size and arrangement of figures can made by the publisher at the production stage. Because of the bulk of the Journal, the production office will reduce most figures to fit a one-column format (88 mm). If necessary, figures may extend across the entire page width (max. 180 mm). Intermediate widths with a side caption are also possible (max. 120 mm). The illustrations should be placed at the top of the column and flush-left according to layout conventions.

If lettered parts of a figure (e.g., 1a, 1b, 1c, etc.) are referred to in the figure legend, each part of the figure should be labeled with the appropriate letter within the image area. Symbols should be explained in the caption and not in the figure. Please use lower case for any words in figures to comply with the A&A style.

See appendix \ref{app:ex-tex-fig} for examples of how figures should be coded in the TeX file.

About figures format

Depending of your preferred LaTeX engine (LaTeX or pdfLaTeX), figures should be sent as encapsulated PostScript files or in any other format as PDF, JPG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and GIF (compatible with pdfLaTeX).

All graphics are either vector graphics or bitmap graphics. Vector figures are graphics consisting of individual, scalable objects such as lines, curves, and shapes with editable attributes, therefore you can resize a vector without loss of quality. The bitmap figures are graphics composed of dots called pixels. Because bitmaps have a fixed resolution, enlarging or reducing them produce jagged and distorted images because extra pixels are added or supressed. Some software packages leave a considerable margin around the figures. You may have to adjust the BoundingBox for EPS figures by hand with the help of ghostview, for example. The figure can also be automatically changed with the psfixbb command, which you will find in almost any LaTeX distribution.

For other formats as PDF, JPG, and bitmap formats, crop out any extra spaces around the figures and also check very carefully that the resolution is at least 250/300 dpi and not 92 dpi, as in standard screen JPG files.
The easiest way to include your figures is by using the graphicx package, which comes along with
the standard LaTeX2e distribution. See the document by Keith Reckdahl "Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX2e", which explains how to use
imported graphics in LaTeX2e documents. The Part I, Background Information provides historical
information and describes basic LaTeX2e terminology and graphic formats.

Tables

Tables should be prepared using the table environment, following
the examples given below.

Tables should be self-explanatory. The table headings should contain the
essential information needed to understand the data presented. Details should
not clutter the header and are better presented as explanatory footnotes. Large tables containing primary data can be archived at the CDS. For details
about archival at the CDS, please refer to paragraph Publishing data at the CDS

Table columns should be set flush left. Vertical lines are normally not
necessary and should be inserted only in exceptional cases for the sake of
clarity. The height of each table, including the caption, usually must not exceed
23.5 cm, and the caption should always be placed above the table.

Detailed examples of TEX code for tables are provided here for simple A&A tables and here for tables longer than one page.

Publishing data at the CDS

By contract with the Journal, the CDS archives the primary data that are
published in A&A and puts them at the disposal of the global community. The
data are also linked to the general purpose data-mining tools developed at the
CDS. These archived data can be primary observational material, catalogs,
theoretical tables of lasting values, etc.

The CDS requires the data tables to be in ASCII format. Each table is
accompanied by a readme.txt file that describes the table's content. The readme
file format defines a standard that is used by all major astronomy journals.
Again by contract with the Journal, the CDS provides help to A&A authors in
order to prepare the files. Primary data can also be archived at the CDS as
graphics files in FITS format. This is of particular interest for spectrograms.

Tables made available in electronic form at the CDS should be prepared
according to the conventions explained below and they should be sent to the CDS
upon acceptance of the paper, preferably using the submission form
proposed on the CDS web site. Alternatively, the tabular material can be sent by
e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
, or by ftp to
cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr.

The electronic versions of the tables are systematically checked for
consistency at the CDS, and the author may have to communicate with the CDS
about missing descriptions or detected inconsistencies.

Preparation of the electronic tables

Tables to be published in electronic form at the CDS should preferably be
prepared as plain ASCII files, one file per table; the description of all table
layouts and contents should be gathered into a file named ReadMe, a template of
which can be copied from ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/J/A+A/ReadMe.txt. In
addition to the description of the tabular material, the role of the ReadMe file
is to supply minimal details about the context and the history of the data.
Detailed instructions for the preparation and the submission of the tabular data
can be found at
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/submit/; specific
questions can be addressed to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
.

Reference to the material published electronically should appear in the
text, including a description of the column headings of tabular
material. The following text is an example of such a description: "Table 1,
available at the CDS, contains the following information. Column 1 lists the
name of the source, Column 2 gives the bolometric luminosity...".
Alternatively, an excerpt from the table (a few lines) can be inserted in the article.

Retrieving electronic tables

For all papers, including old papers that do not have an electronic version,
the online tables can be obtained from the CDS:

References

The reference list

The reference list should contain all the references cited in the
text, ordered alphabetically by surname (with initials following).
If there are several references to the same first author, they
should be entered according to the following scheme:

One author: chronologically

Author, one co-author: alphabetically by co-author, then chronologically

Author, two or more co-authors: chronologically.

The first three author's names are given, followed by "et al.", for papers written by a group of more than five authors.

Papers in preparation (not yet submitted to a journal) are not to be displayed in the reference list and are to be listed as "in prep." in the main text, without any date.
Private communications are not listed either and may be acknowledged as
"YYYY, priv. comm." in the main text.
For papers submitted to a journal that are not yet published, please give the year of submission/acceptation, the name of the journal, and its status: submitted (not yet accepted), or in press. Citations should only mention the year given in the reference.

To set the reference list in the proper A&A format, we encourage you to use
BibTeX and the natbib package instead of the standard thebibliography environment.

How to used BibTeX for A&A

For extensive description of the general use of BibTeX, please see for example
The LaTeX Companion p.757 (Franck Mittelbach and Michel Goosens, second edition).

To use BibTeX, you must:

Create a database (.bib) file that describes the articles
or books you want to reference. The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
provides automatic tools for retrieving a .bib file including entries for
a selection of articles. An example of a typical .bib file is also
provided in the A&A LaTeX macro package.

Specify the style and location of the bibliography in
your TEX document. The A&A package includes a style file aa.bst that will format your reference list in the proper A&A
format. Before running BibTeX you must ensure that the
requested files (i.e. bib, bst and sty
files) are in the same directory as your TEX files.

Run BibTeX then run LaTeX. Remember you
must run LaTeX twice to update the citations.

Citations in the text

References are normally cited in the text by placing the name(s) and the year
in parentheses, without any comma between them. If there are two authors for
one citation, both names should be given, separated by an ampersand (&). If
there are more than two authors, only the first name should be given, followed
by "et al.". Commas should be used only to separate two or more years linked
with one author (author group). If two or more citations are made in one set of
parentheses, they should be separated by a semi-colon. If more than one
citation for a particular author (author group) is made for the same year,
"a", "b", "c", etc. should be added to the year. If citations are made
within the normal running text, only the year(s) should be placed in
parentheses. The following examples illustrate the required style:

Authors' initials are permitted only in exceptional cases, for example, to
distinguish between two authors with the same surname. Each literature citation
made in the text should have a corresponding entry in the References at
the end of the paper. For frequently cited papers, an abbreviated form of
citation is recommended, e.g., Paper I, Paper II (if appropriate) or by the
initial letters of the authors' surnames.

The Natbib package provides citation commands that
automatically format the citations in the proper format. The command
\citet is to be used for textual citations, while the command
\citep is to be used for parenthetical citations. Some
examples are given below.

\citet{jon90}

Jones et al. (1990)

\citep{jon90}

(Jones et al. 1990)

\citep[see][]{jon90}

(see Jones et al. 1990)

\citep[see][chap.~2]{jon90}

(see Jones et al. 1990,
chap. 2)

Multiple citations can be made as usual, by including more than one citation
key in the \cite command argument.

\citet{jon90,jam91}

Jones et al. (1990); James et al. (1991)

\citep{jon90,jam91}

(Jones et al., 1990; James et al. 1991)

\citep{jon90,jon91}

(Jones et al. 1990, 1991)

\citep{jon90a,jon90b}

(Jones et al.
1990a,b)

ADS BibTeX records for citing ASCL and ArXiV entries

A&A Bibtex style now supports the “eprint” field for referring to eprints.
Eprint entries may be added to your bibtex databases. Note that the entry Bibtex format now provided by ADS is also compatible:

Appendices

\begin{appendix}
\section{Title of the first appendix}
...
\section{Title of the second appendix}
...
\end{appendix}

The command
\begin{appendix} must be entered before the first appendix. Then all
sections that follow will be numbered with capital letters.

The main text

Manuscripts should be divided into numbered sections and subsections, starting
with "1. Introduction". Subsections should be numbered 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, etc. All
sections must have a short descriptive title. In the TEX file, the sections
appear as follows.

Cross-referencing

Please always give a \label where possible (figures, tables,
section) and use \ref for cross-referencing. Such
cross-references will be converted to HTML hyper-links. The
\cite- and \bibitem-mechanism for bibliographic
references as well as the \object command is also mandatory.

Acknowledgements

A special section for acknowledgements may be included before the
References list. It will appear as follows:

\begin{acknowledgements} ... \end{acknowledgements}

Some aspects of typographic style within the text

The following expressions should always be abbreviated unless they
appear at the beginning of a sentence (i.e. Sect., Sects., Fig.,
Figs., Col., Cols.). Table is never abbreviated.

Abbreviations of concepts, methods, instruments,
observatories, etc may be used throughout the text, but the full wording followed by the
abbreviation in parentheses should be given once in the Abstract (if
appropriate) and/or once when first mentioned in the main text (usually in the
Introduction).

The preamble of your TEX file

Loading the class: various A&A layouts

\documentclass{aa}

To get the standard A&A 2-column-layout (i.e. single-line spacing), you have to include this command at the beginning of your article.

\documentclass[referee]{aa}

Both for refereeing purposes and, after acceptance, for language editing purposes, the authors are requested to send their article in "Referee format", i.e. with a special double-line spacing layout. To set this class option, please include the referee option. This special layout also provides a list of all astronomical objects indexed with the \object command.

\documentclass[letter]{aa}

There is a special layout for Letters. The mention "Letter to the Editor" is automatically added.

\documentclass[longauth]{aa}

In articles that are the result of consortia, the number of authors and the list of affiliations are very long. With the longauth option, all the institutes are set below the references.

\documentclass[onecolumn]{aa}

Some papers contain a lot of large mathematical formulae that are sometimes cannot be read easily and cannot be written in a 2-column format. In this case, the authors can submit their articles using the option onecolumn. After the submission, the editors will confirm that the article will actually be displayed in 1 column, right across the page.

\documentclass[bibyear]{aa}

If you don't use structured references (according to the author-year natbib style), add this option.

TX fonts

A&A uses the Postscript TX Times-fonts. The TX fonts consist of virtual text roman fonts using Adobe Times with some modified and additional text symbols. The TX fonts are distributed under the GNU public license and are available in the distributions of LaTeX since December 2000.

\documentclass{aa}
\usepackage[varg]{txfonts}
...
\begin{document}

As the use of the TX fonts results in a slightly different page make-up from CM fonts, we encourage you to use TX fonts, following this example.

The manuscript header

Title

Make the title short and communicative; do not use acronyms, except those that are in general use; avoid acronyms known only to those deeply specialized. The main title and the subtitle should not be capitalised, except for the first letter and any other words that are always capitalised. Math variables and symbols should be typeset as in the text.

In the manuscript TEX file, please code the title and subtitle of your article as follows:

\title{your title}
\subtitle{your subtitle}

If a long \title or \subtitle needs to split across two or more lines, please insert linebreaks (\\).

Authors and addresses

For every manuscript, all authors and all addresses should be listed. Addresses should contain e-mail addresses where possible. A number should precede each address and the authors' names should be marked with the appropriate numerical superscript(s). Unless the authors request otherwise, the e-mail addresses will be included in the affiliation to facilitate information exchange between readers and authors.

Names of authors

The preferred form for each name is: initial(s) of the forename(s) followed by the family name.

\author{first author name
\and second author name
\and third author name... }

If there is more than one author, the order is optional. The names should be separated by \and. If the authors have different affiliations, each name has to be followed by \inst{}. Numbers referring to different addresses should be attached to each author, pointing to the corresponding institute.

Addresses

\institute{name of the first institute
\and name of the second institute}

If there is more than one address, the entries are numbered automatically with \and, in the order in which you type them. Please make sure that the numbers match those placed next to the authors' names.

The authors' institutes can also be given using labels, so that there is no need to rewrite the full institutes list if the order of the authors changes during the evaluation process. An example is given below:

In the case of large collaborations involving several tens of authors, a special formatting of the authors' list is requested in
order to save space. With the longauth option, all the institutes are set below the references (see section Loading the class).

Footnote to the title block

...\thanks{text of footnote}

If footnotes to the title, subtitle, author's names or institute addresses are needed, please use thanks immediately after the word where the footnote indicator should be placed. These footnotes are marked by asterisks (*). If you need more than one consecutive footnote, use \fnmsep to typeset the comma separating the asterisks (see example in the file aa.demavailable in the macro package).

Dates of receipt and acceptance

Enter the receipt and acceptance dates as follows:

\date{Received date /Accepted date }

The date is in format "day month year" (e.g., 1 January 2005).

The receipt and acceptance dates of your manuscript will be set by the editors and inserted by the publisher.

Abstract

A new concept "Structured Abstract" is implemented with the version 6.0 of the
A&A macro package. Just like a traditional abstract, a structured abstract
summarizes the content of the paper, but it does make the structure of the
article explicit and visible. For doing so, the structured abstract uses
headings that define several short paragraphs. Three paragraphs, entitled
respectively Aims, Methods, and Results, are mandatory. When appropriate, the
structured abstract may use an introductory paragraph entitled Context, and a
final paragraph entitled Conclusions.

Proceed as follows:

\abstract
{}{}{}{}{}

The second, third and fourth arguments have to be completed. The first one and the last one might be left empty. For example:

\abstract {} {Text of aims} {Text of methods} {Text of results} {}

The abstract should accurately summarize the paper's content, be limited to 300
words, and be self-contained (no references, and abbreviations or
acronyms should be introduced). A counter of words has been added with
an error message for an abstract exceeding 300 words. Citations in an abstract
display an error message. Please note that abstract is a command with 5
arguments, and not an environment.

Remark: Authors who prefer to keep a non-structured an unstructured format can do so using the command \abstract{..} which will make the abstract a single paragraph without headings.

Key words

A maximum of 6 key words should be listed after the abstract. These must be
selected from a list that is published each year in the first issue in January.
This list is common to the major astronomical and astrophysical
journals.

Formatting the header and the running title

Having entered the commands described above to set the title block of the article, please format the complete heading of your article by typing:

\maketitle

If you leave it out, the work done so far will produce no text. The command \maketitle will automatically generate the running title, derivating it from the author and title inputs. If the title is too long for the space available, you will be asked to supply a shorter version. In this case, enter before \maketitle :

\titlerunning{short title}
\authorrunning{name(s) of author(s)}

If there are two authors, both names, separated by an ampersand (&,
coded as \&), should be given; if there are more than two
authors, the name of the first plus et
al.should be given. The title should be shortened
to a maximum of about 60 characters, spaces ignored, following the
wording of the original title as closely as possible. If a paper
has a numbered subtitle, the main title (length permitting) should
be given, followed by the roman numeral of the subtitle.

The Editors reserve the right to modify the running head suggested by the authors, should this be necessary.

The required style is illustrated below (the colon will be inserted by the macro):